


double back

by lousypictures



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Drift (Pacific Rim), dodging ghost drift like your life depends on it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26525218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lousypictures/pseuds/lousypictures
Summary: It can only be the first day after for so long, and Hermann can't unsettle the idea that he hasn’t done it right.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	double back

He'd imagined an aftermath, of course. He kept quiet when Newton raised the question, but took the time—tea steeping, computers in the background running redundant checks on his work—to put the scene together in his head. The fact of it seemed so impossible that he could afford a bit of indulgence. He clings to it now: a memory, manufactured though it is, firmly his own.

It certainly didn't taste so much of vomit, nor smell so sterile; Hermann never pictured the gown, the glass, being made to lie back yet expressly forbidden to fall asleep. It shouldn't matter, some part of him reasons—he should be happy just to be here. He eyes that part with some suspicion.

Hermann asks a lot of himself. ‘Happy’ doesn't usually make the cut.

“You still feel it, right?” 

The question comes high and strained, scratched out from the machine across the room. Hermann closes his eyes; pictures Newton scratching with blunt nails instead, trying to claw his way out of the tunnel. Hermann flinches. Someone else's breath keeps hitching in his chest.

This isn't what he expected, either—that they'd be linked in the body as much as the brain. Some otherpart of Hermann longs for the clean connection of science fiction telepathy: to tie up a little thought, discrete and uncluttered, for the psycho-postal exchange. It almost sounds nice. No open drawers to rifle through, no errant threads to follow; only an added measure of efficiency, and a temporary, manageable intimacy. He wouldn't terribly mind a direct channel to Newton, if that was really all it were.

If it was really only them on the line.

Hermann may have made contact—may have had to, may have dug through dead neurons with his bare hands when necessary—but he knows Newton bore the brunt of their third party's weight. Still bears it, if the contents of his open drawers are any clue. Hermann should have the discipline to avoid the pull of the Drift, whatever Newton harbours in its depths; Hermann feels his discipline tested. Hermann feels like he's paddling at the surface, Newton’s webbed hand grasping for his Julie Adams ankle. He holds firm.

“Hold still,” he mumbles back, limbs twitching sympathetically.

If Newton answers, Hermann doesn't hear it; the machines start clanging again, all the more awful in duplicate. (They're twinned, he knows, for a reason. He recalls the early trials. This does not ease his mind.) It sounds off every other second: a great shudder, a resounding _thunk_. Hermann squeezes his eyes tighter shut, and fishes for that old daydream. Something firmly his own.

He dredges up ceremony, pomp and circumstance and recognition. A broad stage, polite applause. He's weighed down with medals already, and thinks between them—the two of them—they'll have one of every metal.

But it doesn't fit. Hermann finds the spotlight too warm, the suit jacket too stifling, the medals too heavy; he can't shake the urge to shed them. He loosens his grip on the moment. It all goes to shit.

A different kind of celebration, then: rations raided, straightest laces undone, booze enough to send his brain cells gentle into that good night. It's been an honour serving with you, gentlemen—the highest honour, etched into gold and pinned to his breast—

It's downright textbook, how it all starts to blur. He's sharing the stage with a karaoke machine; his father smiles warmly from the audience, paper popper in hand; clandestine couplings spring apart at the flash of too many cameras. Admirals are hooting for a _speech speech speech_ , and Hermann holds himself up by the mic stand, limbs liquid and voice slurring.

He's sharing the stage with Newton. He's sharing a dance with Newton. He's sharing a body with Newton, and it doesn't know the _meaning_ of discipline.

Shudder, _thunk._

Silence falls as Hermann blinks the blue out of his eyes—a heavy silence, then a heavier hum, and again Hermann feels it weighing on his chest. He tries to breathe through it. He tries to ignore Newton’s next words, laced with his same vague distress. (He tries to ignore how they startle him, as if he'd forgotten his partner was out there at all—as if there never was a second machine.)

“Dude.”

Maybe the sound is in his own head. His ears tend to ring at night, certainly; too many loud concerts, though he can't imagine now why he never wore earplugs.

“I would've taken you to a party, Herm.” 

The doctor—the medical doctor, the doctor in charge—offered him earplugs, not twenty minutes ago. He cannot fathom why he didn't take them.

“I mean, it's been a minute, yeah. But I would've found one, if you wanted.”

If he—well. 

Hermann curses open drawers and errant threads, and curses Newton for pulling them. _Want_ is too strong a word, really, for a passing interest; one probably born of proximity to Newton himself, sometime before their brains were dashed together. That wouldn't surprise him.

(Hermann briefly wonders if he might've taken his partner more seriously, had he the first inkling that's what _he_ wanted—if Newton hadn't always struck him, truly, as the type of person who didn't know what he wanted himself—then decides to stop wondering. It never does him any good.)

Hermann wets his lips. A voice from the intercom reminds them both to keep still. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”

The silence is damn near deafening; until. Newton snorts a barely perceptible laugh, and blood rushes Hermann’s face, blush spreading to the back of his neck. His hand moves on its own to wipe it away. A wordless groan sounds through the speaker.

\--

It had been the _medical_ doctor’s recommendation that they avoid mood-altering substances, for as long as their moods were otherwise altered. It had been Newton’s recommendation that they ignore her. It had been Newton's prerogative, and it is Newton's punishment, now, to spend the night kneeling over what may be the grimiest toilet in post-war Hong Kong. He’d hardly even started drinking. Hermann charitably pins the mishap on his fairly chaotic medical regimen. (He puts aside, for now, the explanation of a recent, near Atlantean neural load; like a bruise he fears prodding.)

“I don't hate that one, you know—whichever one that was,” Hermann says, even more charitably. “With the too-long title, and that major seventh in the bridge.”

Newton groans. Hermann can't see him—hovering as he is by the sink, a graffitied door between them—but takes it as a negative.

“I like seventh,” he adds, like they're having an actual conversation.

“No, you don't,” Newton mumbles. More articulately, at least. “I do. Except I don't, like, at all, and I have no idea why I kept trying to make it work.” A sigh, then a _thunk_. “Fuck. It sounded like shit.”

“Everything you like sounds like shit,” Hermann says. Newton makes an odd, choked sound. “I had to assume that was the point.”

It turns into a laugh, of course; if only for a second. Hermann pictures it easily: crooked smile, hands on his knees, a breezy quip back— “Doesn't matter.”

It sounds like a shrug, instead. Hermann fancies something strange in Newton's tone, between flippant and nihilistic; light as in not heavy, dark as in not light. It tugs at the fabric of Hermann's brain like it wants to unfurl it.

“Because you're too sick to perform?”

“Because you can't karaoke some shit no one’s even heard of, dude.” Hermann rolls his eyes on Newton’s behalf. “Brings the whole place down.”

“The last thing you'd want to do, of course,” says Hermann, for some reason. 

They both take pause.

“What—” Newton starts, at the same time Hermann thinks it—before the beat is interrupted by a beating on the door, and their hoarse voices call _occupied!_ in perfect time. The intruder leaves; the silence stretches just past comfortable. For lack of a better idea, Hermann waits for Newton to start over.

“I—of course,” he echoes eventually, half a laugh again. “Hey. Sorry I fucked up your night out.”

Hermann frowns; turns away from the door; turns back, so he doesn't have to see himself haggard and lined in the bathroom mirror. “It wasn't my idea.”

“Sorry I fucked up your night in, then.”

It's easy, airy, light enough to melt—but still Hermann feels the pull.

“You don't have to do that, Newton, really.” He scrubs a hand over his face, finds his expression unexpectedly tight. “It's fine.”

It is, obviously. Hermann feels the same in as out, here as there, home as barracks as miserable happy hour. Tired, overwhelmed, entirely unnecessary—something like a bloated tick, or his and Newton's last lab assistant. It doesn’t matter _where_ he's tired, or overwhelmed, or unnecessary; he knows by now that he lives more in his head than anywhere else, and that the things lodged in his head aren’t easily evicted. Hermann thinks he could land on the moon, and still feel Newton trying to burrow through his skull.

“Can you stop freaking out, then? You're making me nervous.”

Hermann startles; misplaces his weight; winces. “ _Newton_ —what did you—we _talked_ about this—”

“Can hear you pacing, Herm.”

More than a beat, this time.

Hermann catches the squeak of his own shoe in the quiet—how his leg is letting him get away with this, he has no clue—and his raised hackles settle. “Ah.” Heat rises in his face, a sick swill of guilt in his stomach.

Newton shifts, he thinks. “Yeah.”

“Well. Good.” It is.

A pause; a _ping_ of spittle landing in the bowl. “Uh huh.”

Hermann gives in before his legs give out, leaning gently against the door. He happens to turn his head—jaw scraping on thick, peeling paint—and end up with an ear pressed to the wood. He can't even hear Newton breathing.

\----

Newton falls asleep on the train. Hermann doesn't see it happen—Newton had stood in the aisle beside his lone open seat, and had to be bullied halfway across the carriage, wobbling on his feet, when another finally freed up—but he knows it has. The waters churn a touch more fiercely, and stain a touch more freely, bleeding inky and blue.

Hermann pictures the movement under Newton’s eyelids, plotting each point of rest. He keeps his own open, reading the blurb of what must be a bodiceripper clutched close to the chest of the passenger opposite. He never brought his Cantonese quite up to par.

\----

It can only be the first day after for so long, and Hermann can't unsettle the idea that he hasn’t done it right.

They've been cleared to return to their rooms, of course—when the scans came back relatively clean, and the medical personnel could be assured that this was, in fact, Newton’s typical disposition—but Hermann hasn’t slept yet. That made plenty of sense while he was still debriefing, planning, tentatively celebrating. It makes less sense here in his bed, awake and alone with his thoughts. (He reminds himself, near desperately, that it doesn't matter _where_ he's alone with his thoughts. Newton stirs again on the floor beside him, and he holds tighter to that conviction.)

“You're not gonna get to sleep like that.”

Hermann blinks. “I haven't moved a muscle.”

“Not what I meant. And yeah,” Newton adds, even as Hermann opens his mouth, “we talked about this.”

Hermann moves, now, to press the heel of his palm to his eyes. “I'm so glad the point stuck.”

“Steel trap, right here.” Suddenly, there's a poke at Hermann’s shoulder. “Move over.”

After a moment's hesitation, he does. The bed shifts; the sheets are tugged off his feet. But no matter how Hermann searches for a Geiszler-shaped shadow—a soft line between dark and darker—he can't see Newton's face. He has to work to raise his voice above a whisper. “What are you doing?”

“Dunno,” comes Newton's reply, piggybacking on a stifled yawn. “Making it up.”

Hermann rolls his eyes; closes them. “Of course you are.”

Newton exhales sharply, and Hermann would almost think he was offended. Hermann thinks—he thinks Newton turns to face him. Must be more comfortable.

“I lied,” says Newton. “I'm a liar. I've got an incredibly specific strategy, actually.”

Hermann follows his lead, tries to get comfortable himself. He straightens out, on his back where Newton is propped up on his side. He won't ever find symmetry, really, but it doesn't hurt too much to try. “Mm?” he hums, unconcerned about egging Newton on. There’s worse ways to unwind than listening to his chatter, inane or otherwise. What once drove Hermann to distraction, formal complaints, and any number of tension headaches, has become, by the end of the end, somewhat grounding. Familiar, above all. Comforting.

“S’called exposure therapy.”

Hermann's eyes fly open. 

It would be easy to ignore him. Easier still to throw him off topic— _is that practice really_ credible _, Newton_ ; _what exactly defines_ irrational _, Newton_ —but Hermann finds himself too far mired in disbelief. This time, the work doesn’t work; his voice crumples. “I'm not afraid of you.”

“Well, yeah.” The briefest pause. “Except you are.”

Hermann doesn't know what to say to that, so doesn't say anything. It's a strange moment, made more strange and less when Newton shifts again, just barely pressing their shoulders together. He's running warmer than usual. Hermann, still frowning, leans into it. Some part of him registers that as a problem; the rest recognise greater challenges.

“Or,” Newton breezes, like Hermann hadn't missed his cue, “it's really all about them. What'd Franju say?” he asks, soft like thoughtful. “Horror in homeopathic doses?”

That helps Hermann find his voice. “Horror _movies_ ,” he stresses, falling on familiar rhythms. “We share a reference pool, Newton. Don't even try it.”

“‘Cause we're sharing a brain.”

“A workspace.” Then, despite how strangely it sits on his tongue: “A bed, even.”

Frustration finally bleeds into Newton’s voice. “Come _on_ , Hermann.”

Newton’s phone rings, then. (Unless it's Hermann's. Confusion is perfectly justified, at a time like this; forgetting which pre-set ringtone one chose six months ago indicates virtually nothing about the current state, nor ownership, of one's psyche.) It grates Hermann’s already frayed nerves. One of them should pick it up.

“I promise, I _promise_ , that this is not about you,” Hermann argues instead; hushed and insistent over the sound of the phone, charging on before Newton can interject. “I promise that I have kept entirely to myself. And I promise that it doesn't _matter_ , because I know you more than well enough already, and you—you know me.”

The last is somewhere between challenge and plea, leaving Hermann vaguely embarrassed. The ring rises and falls, dragging his breath out with it; Newton takes three to answer, almost sheepish. “You can't believe that.”

Hermann _almost_ wants to throttle him. As if he could believe anything else; as if he's had anything to do, for the better part of a decade, _but_ know Newton; as if it's been any kind of chore. Hermann's practice borders on prophecy. Pulling predictions out of his numbers, for anyone else, would be like pulling teeth; plotting his partner’s trajectory much the same. Still—it comes naturally, to him, by now. It’s _Newton_.

But it's Newton. And Newton, predictably, prides himself on being unpredictable. Hermann would laugh, if he didn't know well enough how Newton would take it.

The phone stops ringing.

“You— _bastard_ , you goddamn—” a yawn, then, draining the already weak sting from his words “— _imbecile_.”

It's kind of like a favour, falling back to barbs. Comfort for the both of them. Newton snorts, seeming to hesitantly shed his hesitance. “Oh, yeah, ‘cause staying up 'til you keel over is real genius shit.”

Hermann scoffs under his breath, more on principle than anything. The assessment, he'll admit, isn't totally unfair.

“What'd you call it?” Newton adds, likely clued in enough to know he's been baited, but never enough to quit while he's ahead. “Discipline? If being a stubborn, sleep-deprived asshole took _discipline_ , I'd be a crewcut. I'd be a fucking Jaeger pilot, man.”

And that's enough to crack what's left of Hermann's composure. His lips twitch at Newton's voice, hoarse with the beginnings of a cold—losing a shoe in a rainstorm will do that to you, Hermann supposes—and even scratchier with sleep besides. His exhale turns to a laugh at the defeated _thump_ of Newton’s probably-gesturing hand, falling to the mattress by his head. Hermann can only assume—until that hand, now winding its way into his hair, makes him reconsider assuming anything. Newton clumsily retakes his lead. Hermann hardly breathes.

“And dead twice over,” he points out, all the acid out of it. His neck strains with the effort of keeping his head still, just barely cradled in Newton’s hand.

“Okay, ouch.”

Hermann gives: letting his head rest properly, and allowing himself a small, private smile. “Apologies.” He plans to enjoy the ceasefire for all of the ten seconds it's likely to last. He only counts eight.

“So listen,” Newton says, Hermann's smile in his voice—and this is one of those things Hermann knows about him. When Newton gets stuck on an idea, he can only be distracted by something more interesting. Hermann is confident he’s the most interesting thing in the cramped, dark room. “It’s a lot, I get it. But you just—you can't know, unless you try, right?”

This is one of the things Hermann knows in general. When unsure, and when afraid, the leap from theory to practise sometimes becomes an unfortunate necessity. (Unfortunate, too, that scientific rigour demands he keep someone around to check his work. The thin mattress creases under too much weight.) “It's not like I'd have to try very hard,” Hermann concedes.

“Yeah, exactly!” 

It should sound more condescending than it does. He wonders if Newton can still feel his fingers, trapped under his neck. Hermann's own, folded across his stomach, are half-numb in solidarity. He lets out the barest sigh, and Newton doubles down, chasing it.

“Easiest thing in the world, Herms, I mean it.” Hermann closes his eyes, and ignores the worry gnawing at his stomach. “Just like falling asleep.”

He's certain Newton couldn't say that with a straight face. He reaches a tingling hand towards where his mouth must be—just to be sure.

**Author's Note:**

> watched pr for the first time last dec, read half the tag, wrote this, forgot the whole thing. not watching pru but i kinda love how post-drift fics can't have happy endings anymore. neat!


End file.
